Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

by Carlos Hernandez

  Yasmany was clearly no stranger to missions like Operation Coral Castle Infiltration. He looked back at me like the soldier the sergeant depends on when maybe a few rules have to be bent to get the job done. He nodded once, all in, to let me know that the question he was about to ask was just a formality. “What if we don’t get lucky?”

  “How fast can you run?”

  He huffed. “Faster ’n you.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.” I rotated back toward the house and got ready to sprint. “Ready?” I whispered over my shoulder.

  He nodded, tiger-faced. Go time.

  I bobbed once, twice, and then took off. I ran as fast as I could while stooping, with Yasmany so close behind me we were almost playing horsey. As soon as I reached the corner of the Coral Castle, I stood up straight and flattened my back against the wall. Yasmany did the same. I made the shh! signal, and then we inched our way along the side of the house. We stepped as softly as we could on the white gravel stones that surrounded the perimeter, aware of every crunch our sneakers made.

  When we reached the garage, I pulled the side door open and hid behind the wall again, listening carefully for any sign that we had been detected. I heard nothing; when I turned to Yasmany, a shake of his head told me he hadn’t heard anything, either. Pantomiming hard, I held up three fingers, then two, then one—after that, we hustled ourselves inside. I pulled the door shut behind us, except at the last micromoment I turned the knob and settled it into the frame gently, so it wouldn’t make a sound.

  The garage was completely dark. I mean so dark that if I stopped believing in myself I might dissipate into the atmosphere like a puff of steam. I think Yasmany felt himself vanishing out of existence, too. He put a hand on my arm, the way a soldier would reach out to his sergeant if they both suddenly found themselves behind enemy lines and unable to see. “Where’s the switch?” he whispered.

  “Papi might notice if we turn on the lights,” I whispered back. Instead, I activated the flashlight function on my smartwatch. “Stay close.”

  That hand on my arm? He brought it up to my head and palmed my skull like a basketball, using me as a human cane. I sighed but didn’t make a big deal about it. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of the mission. I just said, “There’s a lot of sensitive equipment in here. Step very carefully.”

  He squeezed my head yes, like a starving brain sucker. Together, we Scooby-stepped our way through the garage, guided by the weaksauce light of my smartwatch. I swore to never again go outside in pajamas. I needed pockets! Full of stuff! Like a real flashlight!

  “What is all this crap?” Yasmany asked, squeezing my melon with every syllable. He spoke in the same tone you hear from about-to-die actors in horror flicks set in space: terrified, yet curious about all the cool alien gadgetry lying around.

  I stopped moving us forward, then shined the light around the garage. Yeah, the garage did look like a prop room for a science-fiction movie studio. Computer parts everywhere, piled on shelves taller than Yasmany. We could hear the whirr of fans cooling motherboards and felt the heat of them failing to do their jobs. Wires spilled out of computer towers like guts. Post-it notes, stuck on the sides of some parts, had messages written in wizard symbols, advanced math, and abbreviations known only to calamity physicists. Who knew what they said?

  “This is where Papi builds the robots that are going to take over the world,” I said, doing my best imitation of a scientist who knew how to save the world if only people would listen.

  “Why?”

  “Because,” I said with a shrug, not because he could see it, but because your voice sounds like you’re shrugging when you shrug, “maybe he’s sick of the way people have messed up the world. He thinks it’s time to create an army of androids who will be smart enough to do a better job.”

  Yasmany’s voice went through puberty at exactly that moment. “And what’s gonna happen to people?”

  Shrug, as if the annihilation of the human species was no biggie. “Maybe the androids will keep the nice ones as pets.”

  Why had I decided that this was a great time to mess with the Y-man? Not sure. Sal gotta Sal, I guess.

  No, that’s glib, and it’s not the whole truth, and I don’t lie to myself. Fact was, I was worried about going inside. What if the remembranation machine was on? That thing had flattened me earlier in the day, and it had made Iggy scream like he was dying. I wasn’t all the way sure I wanted to be home.

  But tricking Yasmany? Making him think all this junk was high-tech sci-fi stuff Papi was going to use to let robots take over the world? It was ridiculous. I think it helped me remember that being scared of my own house was ridiculous, too.

  Well, whatever the reason, when I heard him gulp, I smiled like the stinker American Stepmom is always accusing me of being.

  I shined the dim beam from my smartwatch all over the garage, faster and faster, more and more frustrated. “Today is not our lucky day,” I whispered.

  “What now?”

  I pointed to a blank spot on the wall. “No ladder. So we can’t climb into a window like I’d hoped.”

  Yasmany was used to bad news. “So what’s plan B?”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Remember how I said this was gonna be a 1000% harder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, now it’s a 1000% harder than a 1000% harder. You still in?”

  “Anything’s better than going home.”

  Ouch. I didn’t mean for him to go that dark. I gave his shoulder a last good-luck squeeze. Then I turned around and carefully moved us forward through the darkness, until we reached the door that would get us inside the Coral Castle.

  I gripped the knob and patiently opened the door until it was only wide enough to peek through. Then I stuck my whole head in the crack so I could check to see if the coast was clear.

  Yasmany, above me, still palming my noggin, stuck his face in, too.

  The short hallway lay empty. Straight ahead of us, the door to the padres’ bedroom was closed. To our right was a wall. The circular staircase to the second floor was on the other side of the house, to our left.

  “The coast looks clear,” I whispered, “but looks can be deceiving. Papi does most of his thinking in the kitchen. He might be right there, waiting to catch us. So you stay here. I’ll scout ahead.”

  “Okay. I’ll cover you.”

  I looked straight up, sniping him with both of my eyes. What the raunch did he mean, he was going to cover me? Oh, I knew exactly what he meant: If I got caught, he was gonna run away faster than a rocket reentering our atmosphere. Thanks for nothing, Yasmany.

  I opened the door only slightly wider, then shimmied through the gap. I swooped like a vampire against the hallway wall and pressed myself flat against it. I could see the wall that hid the dining room on the other side and, in the living room, the remembranation machine.

  I touched my chest instinctively. But nothing hurt. I didn’t feel like I was dying or anything. Still, the room felt different than it had yesterday. It was probably the most closed-up location in the universe now, thanks to the remembranation machine. That’s what had made Iggy cry and what made me feel now like I was swimming in a pool filled with Marshmallow Fluff. It was like losing a sense you never knew you had—not until it was violently taken away from you.

  But the good news was that Papi hadn’t turned on the remembranation machine again. I could deal with Marshmallow Fluff.

  “You okay?” Yasmany whispered, his face, still floating by the cracked door, looking worried.

  I took a second to enjoy the sense of relief before giving him the thumbs-up. Then, with big, quiet steps, I moved over to the corner of the wall and oh-so-carefully peeked into the kitchen.

  Papi’s broad back was hunched over the table. Given the way his body was moving, my guess was that he was having a little merienda. Chacho loved his three o’clock sandwich. With his back to me, and with his attention focused on devouring his ’wich, he didn’t
notice me.

  Which was a problem.

  Very, very quietly, hoping Yasmany wouldn’t hear, I said, “Psst.”

  Ever so slightly, Papi turned his head. I could see his melted-chocolate iris roll to the corner of his eye as he spotted me.

  And then he gave me a wink.

  Okay, confession time: I had totally asked Papi’s permission to have Yasmany spend the night on the way over. I’m not a hooligan, no matter how many times Gabi calls me that.

  I had not, however, asked my stepmother.

  When I’d explained it all to Papi, I reminded him how, a few weeks back, Yasmany had run away from home and broken into Culeco to spend the night there. I had a feeling that the Y-guy was one bad experience away from disappearing forever. You couldn’t just throw him into a full family situation like ours, with all the rules and expectations, and especially the fussing from American Stepmom, who would want to take care of him and tell him what a great kid he was. Chacho would be out of there faster than you could say It’s your turn to take out the trash, Yasmany. He needed safety, freedom, and, most of all, space. And the Coral Castle had a lot of space—we hadn’t done anything with the whole second floor yet. So I asked Papi if Yasmany and I could pretend to sneak into the Coral Castle, and I’d put him up in the second floor, and I’d smuggle up food and video games to him, and he’d have a night free from worry for a change, just like Principal Torres wanted.

  “Sounds fun,” said Papi.

  “But don’t tell Lucille,” I said, using American Stepmom’s full, formal name to indicate how serious I was.

  “Oh, no, of course not,” he agreed, sounding very sly and prankstery and Cuban.

  With the wink, he was telling me he was ready to play his part. I winked back, and he went back to ripping his sandwich apart.

  I crept back to Yasmany. “Okay. Good news or bad news first?”

  “Bad news.”

  “Papi is eating at the kitchen table. We’re going to have to sneak right behind him to get to the staircase to the second floor.”

  Gotta hand it to Yasmany: Fear bothered him less than an itch. He scratched his nose to let me know this wasn’t a problem. “What’s the good news?”

  “Papi daydreams a lot. Most of the time, in fact. It’s how he gets his best ideas. Anyway, as long as we don’t do anything idiotic, I think we can make it past him.”

  Yasmany understood. He joined me in the hallway, shut the garage door noiselessly, and pressed himself against the wall. One nod later, he was ready to follow me anywhere.

  I nodded back, then got down low, spreading my arms out for balance, and trying to channel all the kung fu masters who had inspired the creation of my pajamas. I silently started forward.

  I knew all this was pretend, but I have to tell you, once we cleared the hallway and were out in the open in the Coral Castle, and there was Papi with his back to us, audibly chawing lettuce and whatever other crunchy bits were in his sandwich, I felt as panicky as I did when I was one of the ten players left in an FPS Rumble Royale. But all those hours I’d spent in games hiding and sneaking and stalking and sniping were paying off now. I knew how to keep calm in a situation like this. The brain is the king of the body.

  We scuttled past Papi like centipedes: fast, close to the ground, noiselessly, insect-ly. We’d made it three-quarters of the way to freedom, when Papi grunted and moved.

  Yasmany and I turned to stone. We didn’t breathe, because statues don’t need to breathe, and Papi had petrified us midstep.

  “This sandwich is so good,” he said. And then, pretending to be completely oblivious to us, he crunched down on the next bite.

  What a stinker.

  I waited nine chews before I signaled the go-ahead. A little faster this time, but still in full stealth mode, we scuttled forward. In less than another second, we had cleared the kitchen. Three thumping heartbeats more and we’d made it over to the staircase to the second floor.

  I turned around to give Yasmany our next instructions, but before I could whisper anything, he soundlessly clasped my thumb and shook it—the victory handshake for making it this far. I knew Yasmany had the coolness gene when he made this awkward handshake look totally Hollywood. If I had tried to make it look cool, I would’ve come across so sandwich, they would have to bury me in a giant hoagie roll.

  Yeah! he mouthed, his face jack-o’-lantern happy.

  Sometimes Yasmany’s short-’n’-sweet approach to conversation had a certain poetry to it. “Yeah, man,” I whispered. “Good work. Now, these stairs creak like you’re crushing frogs all the way up. Go slow and step light.” I took off my sneakers one at a time; Yasmany, catching on instantly, took his off, too. “There’s a door at the top of the stairs. We’ll meet there, and then, on three, we bust through. Once that door is shut, we’re home free. Got it?”

  All business again, Yasmany’s eyes explored the length of the carpeted circular staircase, visualizing his future victory all the way up. Then he looked back at me and gave me a yes with his chin. Ready, spaghetti.

  I counted us down: three fingers, two fingers, one finger, go.

  Socked feet shushed against carpeted stairs each time we put down a foot. Each time, the stairs groaned like a sinking ship. We winced and balanced and tried to walk with less gravity—which, by the way, doesn’t work. I heard Yasmany exhale and not inhale again, trying to get every last milligram of extra weight out of his body. Good thinking. I exhaled, too, and didn’t breathe again until we had both reached the top of the stairs.

  I eyebrowed, Ready when you are, and he sniffed, which meant Let’s do it. Three, two, one: We launched ourselves through the door and shut it behind us with a restrained and quiet click. Leaning our backs against it, breathing hard, since we’d both been holding our breath, we looked at each other, victory pouring out of our smiles.

  “We did it!” we whispered at the same time.

  “Oh, you’re home!” said American Stepmom. “I guess I finished just in time. Phew, baby!”

  Our smiles turned into frozen ventriloquist-dummy grins. We slowly rotated our heads like ventriloquist dummies toward the center of the hallway, where American Stepmom’s voice had come from.

  There she was, standing in the middle of the corridor, fists on her hips. She still had on her assistant-principal suit from work.

  Sometimes it takes your brain a few seconds to believe what you’re seeing. I had to wait as long as it takes to sharpen a new pencil before I could ask the simplest question in the world: “What are you doing here?”

  American Stepmom gave me one of her dismissive Oh, you! clicks of her tongue. Then she scooted over between Yasmany and me, turned around, put a hand on each of our shoulders, and started walking us forward. “Silly Sal. Your papi told me you were bringing Yasmany over, but he didn’t have nearly enough information, so I called Principal Torres and she filled me in on everything that was appropriate for me to know. Though I want to be clear, Yasmany, that she was careful not to share anything private—she’s very ethical, that Principal Torres; the more I learn about her, the more I like her—and so anyway, I went to my principal and asked her if I could take off a little early and she was like, ‘Sure, no problem,’ so I booked it over here as fast as I could, which, as Sal knows, is pretty fast, because one of my weaknesses is that I do sometimes exceed the speed limit, which you should never do, but this was an emergency! I had to get the second floor ready for our visitor, who is so, so welcome in our house”—she paused here only to turn Yasmany around—“and you are always welcome, whenever you want to spend the night, so let your mami and your abuelos know, okay?”

  Then, not waiting for a reply, she launched us forward again to give Yasmany a light-speed tour of the Coral Castle’s second story. We were in a hallway that mirrored the one directly below us, but it was the bizarro-universe version of the first floor. The carpet was so worn in spots, you could see the concrete beneath it, and on some of the walls there were three different generations of w
allpaper peeking through in patchy places. And the whole area smelled like tofu water. There were no pictures on the walls, but plenty of spiderwebs usually decorated the ceiling corners. A musty, heavy silence typically reserved for haunted houses weighed down everything.

  Now, though, I smelled cleaning fluid mixed in with the dampness. And there weren’t any cobwebs on the ceiling anymore. American Stepmom must have broomed them out of existence. Light filled the hallway, because the lightbulbs had been changed, and the shutters in the bedrooms had been opened for the first time. I ran a finger across a bathroom vanity as we passed it: dustless. Still guiding us by our shoulders, American Stepmom steered us into the upstairs master bedroom.

  “Yasmany,” she said, “I’ve set you up in here. I just made up a bed for you—one of our guest mattresses that I think should be pretty comfy—but let me know how you sleep on it tonight, okay? And, Sal, I took the liberty of bringing up your Dreadbox and your monitor, because I thought you two might want to play some games tonight. What is that game you like, with the wrestling dogs? Poochie, Poochie Poo or something? Anyway, I’m sure you two will have lots of fun—after you do your homework. Oh, yes, Principal Torres told me all about the work you need to get done before you have your fun, so don’t try to fool me, you stinkers! The master bathroom”—she shouldered us there—“is through this door, and Gustavo cleaned it himself. He’s a bit of a germaphobe, the darling, so you can rest assured this bathroom is utterly and completely sanitized.”

  She wasn’t kidding, either. That bathroom was whiter than the Academy Awards.

  American Stepmom steered our heads to points of interest. “Towels are here, new toothbrush for you, right next to the floss and mouthwash, which is right next to these six bars of soap, because I wasn’t sure what kind of soap you like. What kind of soap do you like, Yasmany?”